Article appearing in issue 69, 26 August - 1 September, of Motorsport eNews, the electronic version of the Australian Motorsport News publication.
On a roll. (Motorsport eNews)
Aussie hopefuls left feeling flat. (The Advertiser)
Article appearing in the Adelaide's The Advertiser Newspaper, August 26, reporting on rounds 7 & 8 from Mosport, Australian rally driver Cody Crocker and Marcos Ambrose.
Mosport Sunday colour.
A Series of photos from Sunday at Mosport during the American Le Mans Series race.
Photos in order: (1) Home built platforms littered the crowd. (2) The Audi's lead the field down through turn 2 and into 3 for the first time. The prototypes were taking turn 2 flat-out in six gear pulling around 4g's. (3) Turn 1. (4) A Corvette takes turn 3 with turn 2 in the background. (5)The prototypes were passing the GT's and each other upto three-wide through 3 and down the blind left-hander of 4. (6) The crowd at turn 3. (7) Turn 5.
Unlucky break sees Drewer finish third in race two at Mosport.
A right rear suspension failure has resulted in young Australian driver Tom Drewer taking third place in race two, Round 8 of the 2008 IMSA Lites Championship at the Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport.
Drewer started race 2 from pole position in the L2 class, and 12th overall, after taking the win and setting a new race lap record in race1 on Saturday, his first ever race at Mosport and in Canada.
(Image: Looking at the failed lower wishbone snapped in two, through the tunnel floor.)
“The start was ultra critical today. I had my two team-mates Jordan (Taylor) and Eric (Vassian) right behind me on the grid, but I had a good plan and I got the perfect start keeping them at bay into turn one.
I pulled a small gap and then Jordan and I battled it out until half race distance when he got a great tow on me going into 8 and he pulled a small gap on me until the safety car came out.
Behind the safety car I went into turn two and heard a clunk. Initially I thought I’d run over something but I was certain there was nothing on the track.
Just prior to the safety car period my team-mate Eric Vassian had radioed into the team to say my right rear tyre was rubbing on my bodywork.
The rubbing was due to the lower wishbone fatiguing, and the clunk I heard through (turn) two was it finally giving way.
It was an unlucky break because the Daily Planet car felt great and we had the package to take it right back to Jordan after safety car lights went green.
Instead I went through turn one and backed off because the car felt unstable. In turn two I could feel that the rear end had given way and limped the car back to pit lane, but our race was already effectively done.
Really though, I was pretty lucky because if it had broken at speed through turn two, or any of the high speed turns here at Mosport, we could have had an even worse outcome or even an accident.
As they say, ‘that’s motor racing’. Yesterday I experienced the high of winning my first ever race in Canada and today not everything went to plan.
I know being the factory WEST team, the guy’s will examine the failure very carefully, work out exactly why it failed, and learn from it.
The main thing is we were still classified third and continued to accumulate points for the Championship.
It was another fantastic weekend for the WEST Race Cars team with Jordan and I giving the team two more race wins.
I want thank my engineer Jake Randels, my coach Randy Aust, and all the whole team for all the effort they have put in during and leading up to this weekend.
I’m ecstatic that this weekend has brought yet another win for Daily Planet and all of my friends, family and supporters back home in Australia who have made all this possible.”
The race was won overall by Jonathan Goring (L1) while Drewer’s team-mates, Jordan Taylor and Eric Vassian took out first and second respectively in the Lites L2 class.
The next race for Drewer and his Daily Planet WEST will be Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta for Rounds 9 and 10 of the 2008 IMSA Lites Championship, presented by Hankook, to be held on October 1-4, 2008.
Drewer wins first time out in Canada.
Tom Drewer has won in his first ever race in Canada at the Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport, taking out Round 7 of the 2008 IMSA Lites L2 Championship.
The win yesterday means the young up and coming Australian has won at every single circuit he has raced at this year, including his first ever race in America earlier this year at the Mobil 1 12 hours of Sebring event.
(Image: Tom Drewer talks to fellow Australian David Brabham after his race 1 win.)
As with Lime Rock Park and Miller Motorsports Park, Drewer had not ventured out on to the circuit prior to his first Practice session.
“This is my first year racing in North America. I’m so happy to be here racing, and to mark another milestone, my first race in Canada, with a win is fantastic. “
Drewer and his Daily Planet WEST started the race from grid position 12 overall, but in pole position for the IMSA Lites L2 Class with his new team mate Jordan Taylor (son of 5 times World Sportscar Champion and 2 times Daytona 24 Hour winner Wayne Taylor) one position behind in 13th.
“My main objective for the weekend is to play it cool, calm and to collect as many points as possible for the Championship.
I knew Jordan would be strong competition. We’ve been trading fastest times all weekend. I also knew that another WEST driver Eric (Vassian) would be on a charge from further back of the grid.
I was a little lucky to start from pole in the class because of the abandoned qualifying session (that gave me pole from superior practice times), but Jordan was only 1 place behind and had the inside line. So, it was always going to come down to the start.
I got a great start and immediately made an aggressive move to the inside, putting at least one L1 car between Jordan and myself. By turn two I think was up to 7th or 8th overall. From then it was about managing my race and my gap between Jordan and Eric.
I didn’t fight too much with the L1s. There wasn’t much point. We’ve got our Championship to win and they have theirs. In the end we finished in 11th overall, one place higher than my start position.
It’s just fantastic to have another win for Daily Planet, my WEST Race Cars team and all of my supporters back home. I really can’t thank everyone who has helped get me over here this year enough.”
Along the way to his victory, Drewer also set a new class race lap record with a time of 1:20.078 in the race which means he will again start from pole in class, 12th overall for race 2, today. Drewer qualified with an average speed of 180 kph on the historic Mosport road circuit.
Drewer on pole for first Canadian race.
An abandoned qualifying session has resulted in Australian Tom Drewer and his Daily Planet WEST starting on pole today for his first race in Canada at the Grand Prix of Mosport.
IMSA officials halted yesterday’s IMSA Lites qualifying after the L1 Elan of Anthony Nicolosi made heavy impact with the wall at turn five of the historic Mosport International Raceway near Bowmanville, Ontario.
After clearing the track, the remainder of the session was converted to an official practice session (3), and the starting line-up for Round 7 of the 2008 IMSA Lites Championship was derived from the combined fastest times in practice 1 and 2.
However due to confusion over the status of the final session, Drewer and his new West Race Cars team-mate, Jordan Taylor (son of 5 times World Sportscar Champion and 2 times Daytona 24 Hour winner Wayne Taylor) traded fastest laps until the end of practice three believing the times would count towards the starting line-up.
The pair reduced their practice 2 times by nearly 2 seconds to finish the session in the low 1 minute 19 second bracket with Taylor less than two-tenths quicker than Drewer.
However, due to the ruling that only Practice 1 and 2 would count for the starting line up it will be Drewer starting from pole today in the IMSA Lites L2 Class after setting a time one-tenth faster than Taylor in session 2.
“The red flag threw everyone into an interesting situation. We all thought we were effectively still qualifying for the remainder of session 3 but in the end the times didn’t count”, Drewer said.
“Jordan and I were trading fastest times until the last lap when he gapped my by a couple of tenths, after I was slowed a little by my other team-mate, Eric Vassian.
I’m sure I could have matched and maybe bettered Jordan’s time if I could have maintained full momentum on the lap as it was shaping up to be a real quick one, but in the end it didn’t matter anyway.
It seemed a bit of a strange decision not to count the times from the third session as well, but IMSA makes the call on what is appropriate and in that sense I was the lucky one. I feel for Jordan because he ended up recording a slightly faster time than me in that ;ast run yesterday , but there have been times I’ve had similar situations go against me, and as they say that’s motor racing.
Anyway, we’re right there together on the grid and given we’re matching each other in times, it should make for one hell of a race.
I’m just really happy that the WEST Factory Team has two of their cars on the front row of the L2 grid. We did a fantastic job as a team yesterday and pushed each other all the way.
Now the focus is the races with my main aim that of collecting points to extend my lead in the Championship. But obviously it would be great to win my first race in Canada especially as I won my first race in the USA”.
This weekend is Drewer’s first time ever driving at the Mosport circuit.
The young Aussie came to North America this year to pursue an international motor racing career after winning the 2007 Australian Thundersports Sportscar Championship with WEST Race Car’s Australian Factory Team.
Drewer made the decision to race IMSA Lites even though he was in line for a test with a top level V8 Supercar (Australian’s equivalent to NASCAR) team. However, the decision has paid of with Drewer winning 5 out of the 6 rounds so far in the IMSA Lites L2 Championship including his first ever race in the USA at the Mobil 1 Sebring 12 Hour event, a track he had never raced at either.
Race 1 at Mosport (Round 7) will be held later today at 12:50pm and Race 2 (Round 8) will take place tomorrow, Sunday at 9:15am.
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